Roggenbier Full Moon Brewing Session

This was my second brewing of a Roggenbier.  The first was wildly successful, in my humble opinion and I wanted to do another one.  I had a couple things I wanted to do with the last version of the Roggenbier, increase the rye and make it a bit darker, more of a traditional Dunkel. With this recipe I jumped up considerably in the rye, but because of the nature of the grain it is necessary to also add something like rice hulls to it to help prevent it all turning to a thick mush during the mash.

As with all my beer, I created a starter, 100ml of Wyeast #3638 Bavarian Wheat Yeast.  This strain of yeast can get very active; you’ve been warned.  Within a couple hours of creating the 1.042 starter I had a very active fermentation going on. With such an early, aggressive fermentation in the starter, I decided to brew the same day as I created the starter.

The Grist:

• 5lbs Rye Malt
• 4lbs Munich
• 2 lbs 2-row pale
• .25 lbs Chocolate Rye
• .25 lbs Caramel Wheat
• .25 lbs Rice Hulls

The Mash:

This was a single step mash, 3.7 gal water at 169°, add grains resulting in a 152° mash.  Hold for 60 minutes.  I sparged for 65 minutes at 168°.  I wanted to go to 75 minutes, but I mush have opened my value a little more then I had anticipated.

The Boil:

The boil with this beer is as simple as they come, 1oz Mt Hood at 60 minutes.

Enjoy a couple of beers, I did!

Fermentation:

The original gravity of the beer was 1.050.  I was expecting 1.052.

Within 8 hours of having pitched my 100ml starter I was blowing krausen through a blowoff tube fermenting at 71°.